Prospective of "TECO Award"The spirit of TECO Award's establishment is to encourage R&D and innovation, as well as promote technology and industrial development in enhancing society's well-being and the recognition of technological innovation as being vital to both society's and a nation's development. Such spirit is in coherence with the goals of my research. Simply put, research is all about.I am truly honored to have been nominated and chosen as the winner of this year's TECO Award. It is a testament to the committee's recognition of our team's innovative R&D. Their expectations are what motivates our team to go the extra mile in conducting both academic and industrial technology R&D, with the goal of overcoming scientific challenges and issues. The TECO Award's continuous encouragement for innovative scientific R&D will not only be instrumental, but also contribute to medical technology development as well as benefit a nations and society as a whole.

Technical ContributionsAntibody drugs realize treatment efficacy through antigen recognition. However, neutralization antigens within the whole body can easily induce side effects and affect quality of life of patients who are long-term users. Therefore, it is imperative to effectively improve the antigen selectivity of antibodies in the disease sites without having antigens subject to systemic normal structure suppression. The innovative invention of hinge domain uses the central part of the antibody itself (hinge domain) as the lock to form disulfide bonds, which can shield the complementarity determining region (CDR) in three-dimensional space. Due to the structure similarity among antibody drugs, the shielding function can block all activities of antibody drugs and researches have proven that hinge-engineering can be implemented on multiple clinical antibodies to form hinges - antibodies can selectively be activated by proteases completely. It is further proven that the antibody hinge can enhance the selectivity and efficacy of antibodies in the disease site in living organisms as well as reduce side effects. Enhancing the selectivity of any antibody drug can improve the quality of life for patients, especially for patients with long-term usage of antibody drugs (patients with cancer, autoimmune disorder, chronic disease). This will allow patients to receive best quality healthcare. The major social benefits of this research are as follows:1. The antibody hinge can effectively enhance the selectivity of antibodies in the disease site and further reduce side effects caused by the antibody drugs. For patients that are long-term users of antibody drugs, it can improve patients' medication safety, as well as their quality of life and well-being.2. The antibody hinge can construct "the second generation progenitor antibody drugs (enhancement of existing antibodies)" with better selectivity to restrain the antibody drug with severe side effects to only be activated within the disease region. This optimizes the dosage and efficacy of the drugs and provides the best healthcare quality for patients.3. The antibody hinge can be widely applied to all kinds of antibodies and bring a revolutionary breakthrough in the R&D of antibody drugs: We have transplanted the hinge domain (copy & paste) in the central part of the antibody to the top end. Due to the structure similarity among antibody drugs, the antibody hinge can be implemented on all antibody drugs in order to further optimize given dosage. The invention has contributed greatly to the mainstream antibody drug industry.4. "One antibody hinge, one license", the antibody hinge creates great business opportunities: We have filed the patent applications for this innovative antibody hinge technology in 15 different countries, and have acquired patent certification in 10 countries, including Taiwan, United States, Japan, China, European Union (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland). Currently, the usage fees of antibody hinge platforms have actually generated a total income of NT$135,985,399 in technology transfer within 4 years. Promotions to and collaborative joint development of technology with global pharmaceutical companies are actively under way. By adopting the method of "One antibody hinge, one license" to customize progenitor antibody drugs for all major pharmaceutical companies (including world-class pharmaceutical companies, such as Roche and Genentech, Merck, Abbott, Amgen, J&J), we grant licenses and sub-licenses, or jointly develop innovative prodromic antibody drugs, actively expanding the development of the global market and improve the safety of antibody drugs. The antibody hinge technology is a revolutionary breakthrough in the use of antibody drugs and creates a vast business opportunity that has a significant impact and contribution to the development of medical technology as well as the nation and society.